Richmond, Virginia, USA, April 7, 2007

Tuft and Pic triumph in cold and snow

Tuft capitalises on two-man break to take solo win

Canadian Svein Tuft (Symmetrics) won the inaugural 112 mile US Open Cycling
Championships with a gutsy solo move on the ultimate circuit, where he rode
away from his breakaway companion Pat McCarty (Slipstream) on the course's steep,
cobbled climb at Libby Hill and held the gap to the line. McCarty took second
place, just barely holding off Rite Aid's Alejandro Barrejo and Russell Downing
(Health Net).

Tuft, the winner of the Tour of Cuba and the prologue at the Redlands Classic
used his excellent form wisely, conserving his energy until the crucial moment
when McCarty made his move. "It was one of those moves - Pat was already up
the road - that just kinda slipped away.

"I got up to him and I guess everyone was just looking at each other expecting
us to crack," Tuft explained. "I knew - in this is the kind of race, when you
get the chance you just gotta take it. I just rolled it as hard as I could...
The last kilometre was total pain... It's been a long time since I've hurt like
that."

The race was made even harder by the weather, which turned from an unusually
warm several weeks of spring weather to a brutally cold wintry mix overnight.
The riders awoke to temperatures just barely above freezing, and near white-out
conditions.

Luckily, the snow melted on the warm pavement, allowing the race to go forward
after a 90 minute delay. Tuft said that the weather was a big factor in the
race's outcome. "It was a huge factor - it just wears down on everyone's energy.
The race is hard enough, and the course is hard enough - but then you throw
in snow and cold like that and it just wears down on you."

Tuft counted the win amongst the best of his career - a career that started
out well years ago with the Prime Alliance squad, but disintegrated into "full-blown
burnout". After a season-long hiatus a few years ago, the 29 year-old has returned
to the highest level of the sport. As he compared his win in Richmond to past
victories, he said, "I always only remember the recent stuff. Part of being
a cyclist is you gotta be able to forget stuff. You have to be able to forget
how much it hurts."

Pat McCarty started the winning break by following the sage advice of his
team director, former Credit Agricole professional Jonathan Vaughters. Vaughters
described the strategy, saying "I told Pat 'don't attack on the cobbled climb
- that's the obvious place, everyone's expecting that.'

"He attacked with three to go [on the climb before the start/finish] and got
away solo for a while - then Svein came up to him. Svein is unbelievably strong
right now, so I knew once he came up that they weren't going to get caught.
He's like a motorcycle right now."

McCarty, still out of breath after following the 'motorcycle' and then struggling
to hold second place, was pleased with the result. "I was just trying to hold
it to the end - I was ready to black out out there... It was close. But it was
a good day for us."

How it unfolded

The race started in historic Williamsburg, Virginia in dismal conditions, as
a freak wintry storm dropped sleet and snow on the area, forcing organisers
to delay the start of the race for close to 90 minutes to allow the skies to
clear so the television helicopters could take to the air. Once the skies broke
up, the race, which is a stop on the international UCI Americas Tour (UCI 1.1)
and the national USA Cycling Pro Tour, got underway in front of Williamsburg's
historic Powder Magazine.

After rolling through 65 miles of areas steeped in colonial history, including
400 year-old Jamestown, the racers entered Richmond, strung out just seconds
behind a break of three. As they headed into town for eight laps of an arduous
5.5 mile circuit, the break was caught, setting up a series of attacks on the
steep climb cobbled climb of Libby Hill Park.

Columbian Gregorio Ladino (Tecos) spent a considerable amount of time off
the front solo in the early circuits, and was eventually joined by Phil Zajicek
(Navigators), but with six laps to go, the pair were reeled in. While other
moves would come and go, it wasn't until Patrick McCarty (Slipstream) launched
an attack on the climb before the start/finish going into the third to last
lap that a move would have success.

When Svein Tuft bridged up to McCarty, the pair quickly gained a minute's
lead on the peloton. As the teams behind tried desperately to organise a chase,
the effort shattered the remaining peloton into several groups. A promising
chase group containing Health Net's Tim Johnson and Shawn Milne, and Toyota
United Pro's Ivan Dominguez split off from the bunch, and started to close the
gap, but it was too late. When Tuft attacked on the final time up Libby Hill,
McCarty was left struggling to hold off the chase group alone.

As Tuft celebrated his victory, McCarty put in a gutsy ride, giving everything
he had left to hold second place ahead of Argentinean Alejandro Borrajo (Rite
Aid) and Shawn Milne (Health Net). Borrajo, a former pro from the Ceramica-Panaria
team left Italy to race in the US, likened the race to a European classic. "With
the distance, the cobbles and the weather - it was very much like a Classic."

Pic sprints to victory

While the men were racing from Williamsburg to Richmond, the women competed
on a shorter circuit in downtown Richmond, completing nine laps of a three mile
loop which did not include the infamous Libby Hill cobbled climb, but did have
several challenging sections of rough pavement and tough hills. Tina Pic (Colavita/Sutter
Home) out-sprinted Advil-Chapstick's Jen McRae and Heather Labance to take the
win, but credited her team with the victory. "Actually, I didn't feel that
great today. But it was great - Andrea [Dvorak] and Iona [Wynter] covered everything
and all I had to do was sit in and sprint the last lap. And even the last lap,
after covering everything, Andrea had so much to go up the hill and lead it
out - they were awesome."

On the last lap, Dvorak went so hard up the hill coming into the final turn
that she opened a gap on her team-mates - something she didn't intend to do.
"Our plan was that I would do the hill and make it to the final corner,
and then Iona would take the finish to the line - but I went a little harder
than I should have, [laughs] then Iona took over..."

As the field hit the 200m to go mark, McRae opened up the sprint in an attempt
to surprise Pic on the uphill, headwind finish, but Pic proved to quick for
her, and came around in the final metres to take the win. McRae, too, gave credit
to her team for being active during the entire race. "We wanted to make
sure we had all the moves covered - it definitely was a breakaway course...
and then if someone didn't get up the road, we would set up for the sprint.
It was great, the weather turned out fine - it was great."

The women huddled together shivering in the cold and snow before the scheduled
start of the race, and happily accepted the hour-long delay while retreating
to their cars to keep warm. When race time came, the skies had cleared and the
sun lent a bit of warmth to a bitter cold morning. Straight from the gun, the
Targetraining team set a hard tempo, but it was Advil-Chapstick's Laura Bowles
who initiated the race's first breakaway, and she was soon joined by Colavita's
Iona Wynter.

The pair pulled their gap out to nearly 30 seconds, but with too many fresh
legs in the bunch, the move did not last. Bowles, riding on good form from the
Redlands Classic, had hoped the move would work. "I felt great - Iona was
working well with me, but it was super windy, and it just didn't work out."

As the break came back to the field, Bowles' team-mate Kirsten Robbins (Advil/Chapstick)
countered, and was quickly covered by Andrea Dvorak (Colavita/Sutter Home) and
Robin Farina (Targetraining). But once again, the break was doomed. Robbins
explained, "It looked like a good break because the top three teams were in
it, but unfortunately, with Tina Pic in the field, it wasn't in Colavita's interest
to work, so with just two of us pulling, we couldn't make it."

Pic sprinted to victory on a special pink bike, signifying her Sutter Home
sponsor's initiative to donate $1000 for every win and $1 for every mile she
races to the breast cancer research program of the City of Hope National Medical
Center, which is outside of Los Angeles. Pic was excited to be able to bring
in more money for the cause. "A lot of people there [at the medical center]
are special cases that they're working on cures for - so another thousand dollars
for this great cause - it's awesome."